KABBANY: Going beyond the extra mile

Vail Ranch Middle School teacher Donna Hinkle can vividly recall
the moment in high school that altered her perception of herself
for the worst.

"I was a sophomore," Hinkle, now 60, recalled in an interview.
"My guidance counselor told my mother I was too stupid to go to
college, word for word. My mother said, 'That's not true, you're
smart.' But I always lived down to that expectation. I was an
average student, I never excelled."

After high school, Hinkle attended college with plans to become
a secretary.

That path drastically changed in the summer of '68, after Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. She joined
the U.S. Marine Corps.

"I wanted to do something for my country," Hinkle said.

She served for 24 years, retiring as a master sergeant. Along
the way, she learned something new about herself.

"Being a woman in the Marine Corps, you are an underdog," she
said. "I realized my achievement isn't based on anything other than
my hard work."

It's this attitude Hinkle brings to her pre-algebra
classroom.

"Oftentimes, I get students who say, 'I can't do math, I am
stupid,'" Hinkle said. "I try to share with them that through hard
work and effort, math isn't as difficult as it seems."

Hinkle has taught at the Temecula school since 1997, and she's
dedicated to the job, tutoring during breaks, lunch and after
school. She's also been known to stay on the phone with students
until late at night, helping them with homework and encouraging
them in other ways.

"Because I felt like an underdog, I want them to be successful,"
she said.

While cleaning their home office recently, Hinkle's husband,
Carl, found stacks of thank you cards from his wife's students, who
wrote about how she gave them hope and taught them to strive for
greatness in education and life.

They praised her for being a role model.

Carl said he's not surprised at the sheer volume of letters, nor
the gratitude spelled out in them.

"She hates to see a kid fail, she takes it very personally," he
said. "So she's deeply involved, and puts so much of her personal
time in."

As the longtime faculty adviser to the school's Associated
Student Body, Hinkle spends countless hours helping the group,
driving around town to get their long list of supplies and working
closely with them to plan and execute a variety of campus
activities, from fundraisers to dances.

"She has got more energy than all of us combined," Vail Ranch
Principal Kevin Groepper told me. "She takes on the challenges of
the at-risk kids and the kids who are the most challenging, and she
relishes the opportunity to teach those kids."

Her efforts in education don't stop at Vail Ranch's gates,
either. Her nights, weekends and summers are also filled with
leading young people. She teaches a youth group on Wednesday
nights, as well as a Sunday school class and vacation bible
school.

"She really, really does a lot for young kids," Carl said,
jokingly adding that the couple can't go out on the town without
his wife being hugged left and right by former students.

Not surprisingly, Hinkle is quick to emphasize many teachers she
knows are just as passionate, giving of themselves in different
ways to the students they're tasked to educate. This week, the
nation marks Teacher Appreciation Week, and thanks for all their
hard work will surely abound.

While many teachers do a great job for our kids, some definitely
go beyond the extra mile.

"For every 10 failures you have that one success, and you say,
‘This is so exciting' and you keep plugging away," Hinkle said. "I
love what I do."